1,805 research outputs found
Quantum Langevin model for exoergic ion-molecule reactions and inelastic processes
We presents a fully quantal version of the Langevin model for the total rate
of exoergic ion-molecule reactions or inelastic processes. The model, which is
derived from a rigorous multichannel quantum-defect formulation of bimolecular
processes, agrees with the classical Langevin model at sufficiently high
temperatures. It also gives the first analytic description of ion-molecule
reactions and inelastic processes in the ultracold regime where the quantum
nature of the relative motion between the reactants becomes important.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Universal model for exoergic bimolecular reactions and inelastic processes
From a rigorous multichannel quantum-defect formulation of bimolecular
processes, we derive a fully quantal and analytic model for the total rate of
exoergic bimolecular reactions and/or inelastic processes that is applicable
over a wide range of temperatures including the ultracold regime. The theory
establishes a connection between the ultracold chemistry and the regular
chemistry by showing that the same theory that gives the quantum threshold
behavior agrees with the classical Gorin model at higher temperatures. In
between, it predicts that the rates for identical bosonic molecules and
distinguishable molecules would first decrease with temperature outside of the
Wigner threshold region, before rising after a minimum is reached.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
A Proposed Legislative Solution to the Problem of Violent Acts by Participants during Professional Sporting Events: The Sports Violence Act of 1980
Over the past decade, the law\u27s emergence into the professional sports arena has been increasing. Traditional criminal assault and battery charges have been levied against professional athletes for injuring other participants. Professional players have also been allowed to recover under tort law for injuries incurred as a result of the intentional and reckless conduct of their fellow players. Despite this increase in judicial activity, however, standards of conduct for professional sports participants are still not well defined and enforcement is haphazard and uneven. To alleviate these problems and also to satisfy the perceived increase in societal consciousness towards violent acts in general, Rep. Ronald M. Mottl of Ohio proposed H.R. 7903, The Sports Violence Act of 1980.
The purpose of the Act is to “deter and punish, through criminal penalties, the episodes of excessive violence that are increasingly characterizing professional sports.” The bill would make it a federal crime for a player in a professional sporting event to knowingly use excessive physical force against one of his fellow participants. Excessive physical force is defined generally as force which has no reasonable relationship to the competitive goals of the sport and which is not a foreseeable hazard of the athlete\u27s involvement in the sport. The maximum penalty for violating the statute would be a $5,000 fine and one year imprisonment.
This Comment will first examine the various mechanisms that have been used to deal with acts of professional sports violence, namely internal league controls, tort law and state criminal assault and battery statutes. After an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of these existing approaches, the Act will be evaluated to determine if its approach offers a substantial improvement over those methods of control already available. It will be seen that although current enforcement procedures may be inadequate in most cases, the Act fails to offer any solutions to the problems Suffered by these existing methods of control. Arguably, the Act even presents some new interpretative problems not presently encountered with existing approaches
Using nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems to understand and correct errors in equilibrium and nonequilibrium discrete Langevin dynamics simulations
Common algorithms for computationally simulating Langevin dynamics must
discretize the stochastic differential equations of motion. These resulting
finite time step integrators necessarily have several practical issues in
common: Microscopic reversibility is violated, the sampled stationary
distribution differs from the desired equilibrium distribution, and the work
accumulated in nonequilibrium simulations is not directly usable in estimators
based on nonequilibrium work theorems. Here, we show that even with a
time-independent Hamiltonian, finite time step Langevin integrators can be
thought of as a driven, nonequilibrium physical process. Once an appropriate
work-like quantity is defined -- here called the shadow work -- recently
developed nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems can be used to measure or correct
for the errors introduced by the use of finite time steps. In particular, we
demonstrate that amending estimators based on nonequilibrium work theorems to
include this shadow work removes the time step dependent error from estimates
of free energies. We also quantify, for the first time, the magnitude of
deviations between the sampled stationary distribution and the desired
equilibrium distribution for equilibrium Langevin simulations of solvated
systems of varying size. While these deviations can be large, they can be
eliminated altogether by Metropolization or greatly diminished by small
reductions in the time step. Through this connection with driven processes,
further developments in nonequilibrium fluctuation theorems can provide
additional analytical tools for dealing with errors in finite time step
integrators.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Agrotechnologies towards Ecotechnologies the three pillars for developing Eco-design
International audienceTo boost agrotechnologies towards ecotechnologies ("environmental technologies" according to ETAP programme of EU, or "more ecologically productive technologies" in the context of agriculture), we need to strengthen a "triple bottom" system: -To take into account, in "Life Cycle Analysis" methodologies, the natural variability in time and space of these applications in land use. - To develop an overall approach for realistic machinery qualification, in order to feed the environmental burdens accurately through relevant data bases collected on agrotechnologies in real action. - To work on Eco-innovation processes, by deepening specific innovation tools and methods, for implementation of innovative solutions chosen according to LCA results. This paper presents the concept, develops the methods and illustrates them by examples of results on organic spreading technologies
Fluctuating and dissipative dynamics of dark solitons in quasi-condensates
The fluctuating and dissipative dynamics of matter-wave dark solitons within
harmonically trapped, partially condensed Bose gases is studied both
numerically and analytically. A study of the stochastic Gross-Pitaevskii
equation, which correctly accounts for density and phase fluctuations at finite
temperatures, reveals dark soliton decay times to be lognormally distributed at
each temperature, thereby characterizing the previously predicted long lived
soliton trajectories within each ensemble of numerical realizations (S.P.
Cockburn {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 174101 (2010)). Expectation values
for the average soliton lifetimes extracted from these distributions are found
to agree well with both numerical and analytic predictions based upon the
dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii model (with the same {\it ab initio} damping).
Probing the regime for which , we find average
soliton lifetimes to scale with temperature as , in agreement
with predictions previously made for the low-temperature regime .
The model is also shown to capture the experimentally-relevant decrease in the
visibility of an oscillating soliton due to the presence of background
fluctuations.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figure
Adaptive Langevin Sampler for Separation of t-Distribution Modelled Astrophysical Maps
We propose to model the image differentials of astrophysical source maps by
Student's t-distribution and to use them in the Bayesian source separation
method as priors. We introduce an efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
sampling scheme to unmix the astrophysical sources and describe the derivation
details. In this scheme, we use the Langevin stochastic equation for
transitions, which enables parallel drawing of random samples from the
posterior, and reduces the computation time significantly (by two orders of
magnitude). In addition, Student's t-distribution parameters are updated
throughout the iterations. The results on astrophysical source separation are
assessed with two performance criteria defined in the pixel and the frequency
domains.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
Fluctuation-Dissipation-Theorem violation during the formation of a colloidal-glass
The relationship between the conductivity and the polarization noise is
measured in a gel as a function of frequency in the range . It is
found that at the beginning of the transition from a fluid like sol to a solid
like gel the fluctuation dissipation theorem is strongly violated. The
amplitude and the persistence time of this violation are decreasing functions
of frequency. At the lowest frequencies of the measuring range it persists for
times which are about 5% of the time needed to form the gel. This phenomenology
is quite close to the recent theoretical predictions done for the violation of
the fluctuation dissipation theorem in glassy systems.Comment: 6 pages + 4 figure
Stationary Metrics and Optical Zermelo-Randers-Finsler Geometry
We consider a triality between the Zermelo navigation problem, the geodesic
flow on a Finslerian geometry of Randers type, and spacetimes in one dimension
higher admitting a timelike conformal Killing vector field. From the latter
viewpoint, the data of the Zermelo problem are encoded in a (conformally)
Painleve-Gullstrand form of the spacetime metric, whereas the data of the
Randers problem are encoded in a stationary generalisation of the usual optical
metric. We discuss how the spacetime viewpoint gives a simple and physical
perspective on various issues, including how Finsler geometries with constant
flag curvature always map to conformally flat spacetimes and that the Finsler
condition maps to either a causality condition or it breaks down at an
ergo-surface in the spacetime picture. The gauge equivalence in this network of
relations is considered as well as the connection to analogue models and the
viewpoint of magnetic flows. We provide a variety of examples.Comment: 37 pages, 6 figure
- …